Notes / Commercial Description:
This beer does away with Vanilla and spices common in Christmas ales and delivers hops and bitterness. A new style of beer developed in the Pacific Northwest, this CDA is hopped like an IPA but is dark in colour. 100-mile local hops were used to build the hop flavour and aroma.

More User Reviews:

341ml bottle, day 13 of the Parallel 49/Central City Mystery Gift Holiday Countdown.

This beer pours a clear (I think), very dark brown colour, with prominent basal cola highlights, and three fingers of puffy, rocky, and bubbly beige head, which leaves some stellar webbed jungle tree profile lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

The carbonation is fairly understated in its generic frothiness and opportunistic fizziness, the body a sturdy medium weight, and full of a tattered sort of smoothness, the roast and hops not known for playing nice in that arena. It finishes off-dry, the blend of styles as apparent as ever.

While this may eschew the typical seasonal beer trappings, it does at least get it all right with the name - the blackened malt, the (Christmas) tree-borne bitterness, I'm fine with letting that all go. But, as usual, as a normal, drinkable brew - I just can't get on board with the two dueling forces here, and what they do to my various flavour receptors.

Appearance. Black Christmas pours pretty much black, a little brown at the edges when held to the light. It's capped with almost two fingers of khaki head that pretty much paints the sides of the glass.

Smell. Dark chocolate and fresh piney hops with a touch of citrus, molasses and cedar.

Overall. Very nice flavours in a great ballance. The only thing I would ask for is a little more flavour, although not being a hug beer does make this a pretty easy drinker. I'll look forward to having it again next year!

A: Black brown with a minimal hint of transparency. Thick and luscious 2 fingers of variable bubbles hold across the top head that hold a

S: Like a pine cone soaked in molasses, acrid and metallic. Hint of acrid (cold) coffee, with a lasting end note of metallics.

T: Hops play forward to wrestle with the molasses toasty malts. This brew is no shrinking violet, it's big flavour, however I find the hops a little sharp compared to the toasty molasses. In the background there is mineral notes and notes of woody bark.

M: Medium mouth feel with lasting buzz of carbonation from start to finish. A lasting alcohol ester even after the swallow.

O: Admission: I don't appreciate the style of a CDA as much as an IPA or ESB, so overall I found a few points to ponder. Smooth up front then a big punch of hoppy piney bitters. I find the hops too sharp and don't balance with the malts, but rather round house kick the malts off the palette. There is a spirited amount of carbonation and even some creaminess. The smell is acrid and sharp with a strong hop presences. Heavy on the hops and easy on the malts, like drinking a christmas tree with a garland of gingerbread.

One of the new Winter seasonals from Parallel 49 ( the others being a Scottish Wee Heavy and the Milk Stout called Ugly Sweater. This is a Cascadian Dark Ale that delivers on all fronts. The seamless blend of the IPA hops and the dark malts make this a wonderful drinking beer. Often with this style the finish can be a little rough and dry but this beer is smooth and balanced. I accept that a Holiday beer can be anything you want so why not a CDA since Parallel 49 has yet to add one to its lineup.

341 ml bottle poured into a tulip. An opaque dark black (looks brown at the very bottom) with a solid three fingers of thick frothy tan head that recalls sponge toffee. Great look. Also on board with a black IPA as a Christmas offering, as I am more than a little spiced out right now, at least when it comes to beer.

Aroma is rich with coffee, molasses, and dry chocolate chips deftly seasoned with grapefruit, mango, pine needles, oregano, and dried cherries. Kind of a dried leather fruity sweetness. Sublime. The taste does not quite reach such lofty heights but still delivers some robust dark coffee, dried fruit snack, menthol cough drop, flat cola, and honeyed caramel flavors that co-exist relatively peaceful-like. May not hang together as well as some other CDAs I've sampled but still vibrant, roasty, and darkly sweet with plenty of potent hop resins. Orange juice and crisp spicy leaf become noticeable late. Thick texture, rather creamy, with gentle carbonation. A distinct whiff of ash emerges in the dry finish.

This gets top tier scores across the board expect where it counts most. Still, a solid addition to the Parallel 49 canon and something I'd buy outside of the holiday context.

S: Aroma is of lots of hops, pine needles and some light roasted malts.

T: Starts off all hops, with a bit of bitter citrus, typical IPA flavours, then transitions into the darker ale part, finishing off with light bitter coffee, roasted malt and slight molasses.

M: Very crisp and light tasting, medium carbonation and overall nice balance with a hint of alcohol.

O: Definitely not your typical winter warmer, which considering it was born on the West Coast out of the West Coast CDA style, I guess it is perhaps fitting as I sit here drinking it and it in 2 degrees and raining! That said it is hard to review it as a Christmas beer per say so as a American Black / CDA, I will say that it is a decent offering from P 49, it is quite hoppy and really uses an IPA base that is pretty dominant, as is typical of this style. I wish that the hops were a little more balanced and if they were going to "sell" it as a Christmas Beer, that it had a little more something in the complexity that differentiated it from a typical, run of the mill CDA. It does lend itself to having with food though better than a typical winter warmer. Worth trying if you can grab a bottle over the holidays.